Yeah – that’s what I fugured, Bryan Ekers.
wring, I know of no other way to determine whether a man is telling the truth than to look at the words he has used. Admitedly, this exercise becomes more challenging when a poster feels that a message board contains some metaphysical analog to a soul so that the “spirit” of a post may exist independently of its body.
I am actually reminded of liberal’s theology. Bryan Ekers feels the “atoms” his message are trivial. We are expected to divine his “spirit” directly, without reference to such mundane details. I have a sense that he even thinks I care particularly whether he calls me a jackass. Then again, he also seemed to think this thread wa designed to bring about a change in message board policy. :smack:
Bryan Ekers
Since I find your message board metaphysics to be misguided, maybe we should next focus upon a purely factual claim. Unfortunately, it’s going to be hard to examine any claim without actually looking at the words making up the claim. Still, let’s start with reading comprehension, since that seems to be the true impediment to our communication.
Early on, I made reference to misreadings on the part of others. You said you had seen none. You even asked to be enlightened I driected you to specific posts. You said you still saw none. I listed a few of RedFury’s for your ease of identification. You have been strangely silent on the issue since (the reason why can only be subject for speculation.) So, let’s just ask the straightforward question:
Do the above statements "call RedFury dishonest?
Well, with enough agressive parsing, even simple declarative statements like “The dog has a ball” could be twisted around. The statement stands as the collective work of all the components. What the “atoms” do in their spare time is not my concern, nor is it the basis of any kind of rebuttal.
I simply don’t equate disagreement (even crude profanity-laden disagreement) as “misreading”. I think RedFury (and others) probably does understand everything you say (your statements are not particularly complex) but he dismisses them, and you.
Well, you can continue to speculate if this is true or not: the reason I fell silent on the issue is because the issue (debating the meaning and application of the word “misread”) is a waste of time.
I don’t understand how this question is “straightforward”. Suspected trolls should be reported. It looks like the situtation you describe is:
[ul][li]Public accusations of trolling are against the rules.[/li][li]The mandated response to trolling is reporting it to the mods.[/li][li]Red accused Liberal of being a troll and did not report it to the mods.[/li][li]Therefore Red broke the rules, or he doesn’t really believe Liberal is a troll and thus is intentionally dishonest.[/ul][/li]
Is that a fair summary?
And yet still no demonstration that my parsing was in error. I wonder if I could have predicted that.
[quote]
Public accusations of trolling are against the rules.
The mandated response to trolling is reporting it to the mods.
Red accused Liberal of being a troll and did not report it to the mods.
Therefore Red broke the rules, or he doesn’t really believe Liberal is a troll and thus is intentionally dishonest.
It seems fair, but it is not accurate. Unlike yourself, I generallt try to phrase my sentences to specifically denote the meaning I intend to communicate. You might try:
[ul][li]Public accusations of trolldom have been frowned upon in the past[/li][li]If RedFury thinks Liberal’s posts are trollish[/li][li]Then he should report them to a mods privately[/li][li]If RedFruy does not think Liberal’s posts were trollish[/li][li]Then drawing a parallel between Liberal’s behavior and trolls is intellectually dishonest.[/ul][/li]
Your summary excludes a potential middle case in which RedFury might not have formed a conclusion about whether Liberal’s posts were trollish. It also chooses to focus upon the idea of rules violations and contorts “drawing a parallel” into “making an accusation”. At the end of it all, though, even the inaccurate conlusion to your chain does not call RedFury dishonest.
Oh, and
The question was: Do the above statements "call RedFury dishonest?
:rolleyes:
As an afterthought, it occurs to me that I might be accused of hyporcisy, i.e. dismissing Spiritus’ parsing of my statements while I parse some of his. I’d like to head this off by pointing out that I’m not resorting to dictionary analysis of individual words, and I did ask:
If Spiritus feels that it is not a fair summary, I’ll retract and rewrite.
Whoops! I hadn’t seen Spiritus’ replies while I was composing my own afterthought message. Unfortunately, my lunch break will shortly end and I’ll have to return later for a more detailed reply. I’ll be basing that reply on Spiritus’ amended bullet-list.
Nor did I. You implication is dishonest.
The only reference I mad eto the definition of individual words was to note that you had used “whence” incorrectly. This is obviously relevant to any attempt to understand what you were trying to say.
Enough. The thread has devolved into a pointless squabble. Feel free to continue the discussion on email, but this thread is closed.